Dutch Rivers Are Receding, But Danger to Dikes Persists

By ALAN COWELL,

Published: February 3, 1995

OCHTEN, the Netherlands, Feb. 2—
The Dutch authorities said today that river flooding threatening their vast web of protective dikes had slowly begun to recede, but they warned that the dikes could still crumble and that the crisis was not yet over.

Throughout this week and last, downpours across northern Europe have turned the Rhine, Meuse and Waal rivers into vast sheets of menacing brown water that threatened to push through the dikes and cascade onto countless homes and farms in the river lowlands that make up much of the southern Netherlands.

At least 200,000 people in the Netherlands were forced to evacuate their villages and farms, taking valuables, livestock, automobiles and pets with them.

Some 5,000 people were evacuated from this village 12 miles west of Nijmegen, regarded as among the most threatened after the dike here began seeping water on Wednesday.

"There was me, my wife and my son," said Marco Penders, a 27-year-old accountant who was one of the refugees. "We took the dog and the rabbit with us. We put our furniture on the second floor of the house. And we removed money, valuables and documents."

"We also took the teddy bears," Mr. Penders added after a pause.

The authorities throughout flooded areas of Germany, France and Belgium reported lower water levels today, and a bright, wintry sun sparkled on the flooded land punctuated by half-submerged farm-houses, trees and channel-markers intended to guide shipping on the Rhine, Meuse and Waal.

Weather forecasters said the dry weather was expected to continue for several days.

"We had a life-threatening situation here yesterday and we ordered the evacuation," said Hans Helmink, an official from the emergency relief operation in Ochten, where the effort to contain the flood-waters today drew civilian volunteers and police divers.

Military helicopters were used, as well as F-16 warplanes that flew low passes over the dikes taking infrared pictures. The pictures, which distinguish between heat and cold, can show whether and where the flood waters have eroded the 1,500-mile network of dikes.

According to Mr. Helmink, the dike guarding the near houses in Ochten -- tidy as a toy town today, with streets deserted, stores closed and the tables at the locked Cafe Waal set with glasses and napkins for absent diners -- had threatened to breach and the road running along its top had begun to crack.

By today, though, 3,000 truckloads of sand had been laid to reinforce the dike on its dry side and plastic sheeting had been laid along 900 yards facing the Waal River -- part of a huge attempt in many parts of the Netherlands to hold the line against the worst floods for 40 years.

"There is still a lot of risk here," Mr. Helmink said, echoing similar remarks by officials from the Netherlands' crisis center in Nijmegen. "There's still an enormous chance of a dike crumbling. The dikes are soaked and they could still collapse."

If the dike collapsed, he said, the waters rushing through it would create a wave of water four feet high rushing across an expanse of farmland extending 20 miles.

The Dutch Interior Ministry said water levels seemed to be stabilizing, but it was possible dikes could still break.

Indeed, a day's drive through many flooded areas showed some main highways still severed, some towns like Venlo, south of here, partly under water. and what used to be rivers turned into vast lakes. Along many main highways, smaller roads leading to stricken villages are closed off by police barricades. For all that, there has apparently been no mass panic.

Paul Herder, a volunteer worker in the relief effort here, said the evacuation on Wednesday went relatively easily. "Most people went by car and the elderly went in ambulance," he said. "There was a bit of panic when people forgot to switch off the gas and the electricity or forget to take their medicines with them, but it went pretty smoothly."

The Mayor, Henk Zomerdyk, added, "In a few hours, the whole village was empty."

The flood showed some of the perils that are second nature to the Dutch, whose homes today lay 20 feet and more below the level of the Waal river on the other side of the dike. But it also highlighted their attachment to what they have built on such precarious terrain.

Because farmers refused to leave without their cattle, Mayor Zomerdyk said, livestock was transported to drier places after the human evacuation. In one case, a sports and exhibition hall was converted into a makeshift cattle-pen. One man, who declined to be identified by name, said he was among the few who had refused to leave Ochten. The reason: he did not wish to desert his racing pigeons.

Even before the danger was over, other concerns had become apparent, too. In a land where protecting the environment has a high priority among pressure groups and politicians, the sight of trees uprooted by bulldozers to reinforce weakened dikes raised some eyebrows. "Trees are sacred here," said a reporter from a Nijmegen newspaper.

And the very weakness of the dike here revived what emergency volunteers called a long-standing debate over the environmental impact of strengthening the dikes -- an operation that environmentalists fear could damage farmland, orchards and homes.

Another worry, said Mr. Helmink, was that when people are allowed to come home they would complain that the evacuation had been an overreaction. "It's hard to leave your home, so people will complain," he said, "but if we'd done nothing and the water had come through, there'd have been more complaints."

Evacuated residents are not expected to begin returning home until early next week.

The Dutch authorities said the places still at risk included the medieval town of Kempen on the Ijssel River, while, across the border in Germany, a state of emergency remained in force in the town of Kleve.

In Belgium, the Interior Ministry said there had been a "general improvement" while in many parts of Germany many people turned their attention to cleaning up after a disaster that has taken some 29 lives in Europe and caused an estimated $2 billion worth of damage.

Photo: Flooding has forced 200,000 Dutch people to abandon homes. Two cyclists looked over the flood waters yesterday from the dike at Ochten. (Reuters) Map shows the location of Ochten, Netherlands.